Dennis Felton has been fired as Georgia's basketball coach, one day after the team lost by 26 points at Florida for its seventh straight defeat. A person with knowledge of the situation told The Associated Press that Felton's ouster would be announced by athletic director Damon Evans at a news conference Thursday. The person spoke on condition of anonymity because the announcement had not been made.

The jokes had stopped. Georgia's pain had not. It was five years ago that scandal torpedoed a onetime Final Four-caliber basketball program, that a sham of a class taught by then-assistant coach Jim Harrick Jr. sample exam question: How many points does a three-point field goal account for? rendered the Bulldogs a national punch line. They come off NCAA probation next month, but a last-place divisional finish in the Southeastern Conference made it clear: Recovery was far from complete.

Georgia's rapidly dwindling basketball team lost another key player Monday when junior guard Mike Mercer was kicked off the squad for failing to meet its standards and policies. Mercer, Georgia's second-leading scorer at 13.7 points a game when he sustained a season-ending knee injury last season, already was serving a 15-game suspension when coach Dennis Felton decided to send him packing.